


Twister City: Interlude #1

by kseda



Series: Twister City [2]
Category: Tin Man (2007)
Genre: AU, Gen, Hilarity Ensues, Twister City, domestic fic, poor attempts at parenting, spoilers for eventual Ambrose/Cain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 11:21:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kseda/pseuds/kseda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A week after the Cains move in, Ambrose tries his hand at bonding with a sulky teenager. The sulky teenager's grumpy father does not approve. The cat doesn't care. A deleted scene from some "Twister City" episode or another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twister City: Interlude #1

**Author's Note:**

> Another installment from my Topeka-based police drama AU. If you're lost I encourage you to give "Stormborne" a look.

By and by the Cains settled into their new (temporary) home. Jeb had started school and found himself stuck with the nerds and Wyatt had discovered that law enforcement in Topeka required a certain suspension of disbelief.

Ambrose was just thrilled that the cat had found someone to like. Pronces had belonged to his grandmother and had never quite gotten over her death, so he treated Ambrose with a certain level of disdain while Wyatt was forever getting hissed at.

Damn cat loved Jeb. Loooooooved him. Wound around his legs and tripped him up and headbutted him and demanded belly rubs and presented himwith dead birds and all the things that went along with feline affection. Jeb more or less took it in stride, aside from the dead bird which he passive aggressively left for Ambrose to take care of.

So they formed as fine and functional a unit as four men could. Well, two men, an adolescent, and a neutered middle-aged cat. Living in an old Victorian house. In Topeka. 

"We could have a sitcom!" Ambrose declared with a somewhat manic grin over dinner on the fifth night. 

Wyatt stared at him and wondered, not for the first or last time, what sort of Jedi mind-trick Rawlins had pulled that had made him think this (very temporary) living arrangement was a good idea.

Jeb simply ignored him and snuck another piece of chicken to the cat.

Once dinner was finished and the dishes done Wyatt took his ( _temporary_ ) spot on the couch and flipped on the TV. Jeb sat at the kitchen table and blatantly did not do homework. Instead he very pointedly flipped through a photo album which featured Ambrose's father and aunt when they had been kids. A number of pictures had been taken in the very kitchen and dining area Jeb now found himself in.

Ambrose was staring into the depths of the freezer as if his mind were powerful enough to summon the chocolate cherry ice cream he suddenly desired more than anything else in the world. Well, anything aside from the usual top three of 1) a relationship that works 2) a million-dollar patent and 3) a jetpack. Since neither the top three nor the ice cream looked to be making an appearance he settled for his usual plan B and opened the liquor cabinet.

Which reminded him of something he'd been meaning to ask.

"Hey Wyatt!" he said and poked his head (and neck and part of a shoulder, he's not THAT good) into the living room. "D'you drink?"

This was, somehow, VITALLY IMPORTANT and totally worth making Wyatt jump.

Wyatt had adorably actually put a hand to his heart, but had quickly recovered and was now glaring at him. Again. Some more. TEMPORARY. "I'll have a beer every now and then."

"Huh," Ambrose responded. "Good, good. I'm a bourbon man myself but beer's acceptable." He pulled his head (and neck and part of a shoulder) back out of the living room and turned to address Jeb. In the name of science. "How about you?"

"WHAT?" came from the living room.

"I think it's important to know these things," Ambrose continued smoothly in the face of Jeb's stare (maybe it was genetic?). "Kids do crazy stuff in general but especially after a trauma. After my folks died I spent way too much time in cemeteries, but I was like eight and it was, you know, Topeka so what can you do?"

By now Wyatt was standing in the doorway and really, really glaring. For his part Jeb nodded, quite slowly, then shook his head. "No. I don't drink."

"But you appreciate me addressing you on the subject in an adult-like manner?" Ambrose asked with something approaching puppy-like enthusiasm. "It's said teenagers respond better when you treat them with respect rather than-"

Wyatt opted to cut him off completely. "Don't drink," he admonished his son, complete with accusatory pointing. There was an implication that he would know if Jeb so much as considered the notion, and the penalties would be severe and involve grounding. For a week. Maybe two.

Ambrose frowned slightly and made a "case in point" gesture. "What he said."

An awkward silence filled the dining room, as if the space itself knew that in a year and a half it would bear witness to Ambrose and Wyatt making out against the counter, completely oblivious to the fact that Jeb had come home early from band practice. 

The room was smug. The two men and the teenager were annoyed, frustrated, and nihilistic (respectively). The neutered middle-aged cat had snuck into the liquor cabinet and would be shut in its confines and not missed for three hours, whereupon it will start yowling.

The inconvenience of it all would be temporary.


End file.
